Spinal Fantasy
Jul. 20th, 2004 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatOkay, as I promised, here's my review of the new They Might Be Giants EP. Before I get into the review proper, is it appropriate to put EP titles in italics (The Spine Surfs Alone) or quotation marks ("The Spine Surfs Alone")? Or is there no real rule? I guess it's not that important, is it?
The Spine Surfs Alone: This is pretty cool. Not one of the band's best songs or anything, but it's a good fast-paced rock song.
Now Is Strange: I like the lyrics to this one. Well, the ones I've been able to work out, anyway. Good overall sound, too. I don't really have that much else to say about it, though.
I'm All You Can Think About: The best song on the EP. It's traditional TMBG in a way, with a sound that's kind of creepy, but with a heavy dose of humor. Lyrically, it sounds like it could be the other point of view on "Spy." Sonically, I like John Linnell's goofy faux-British accent, the piano, and the horns. The "ba ba ba ba" part seems so ridiculously inappropriate, yet it still fits somehow. There's an animated Flash video for this song, which will play if you put the CD into a computer. Speaking of the video, does the pair of glasses that the singer dons at one point remind anyone else of those worn by Professor Farnsworth from Futurama?
Fun Assassin: There's a kind of old-fashioned sound to this one. While not one of my favorites at the moment, I could definitely see it growing on me.
Skullivan: I think the title might be better than the song. Kind of like "Prevenge" and "Bastard Wants To Hit Me" in that respect, I suppose, but both of those songs are considerably better than this one. Very experimental, with a lot of nearly unintelligible babbling/yelling from John Flansburgh. Not that that's necessarily bad, but I don't think this song works so well.
The Other Side Of The World: A short, bell-heavy instrumental. I like it, but it's really not much.
Canada Haunts Me: A song that the band did for the audio book version of Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot. Okay, but not great. Maybe it works better in context. If anyone has the audio book, how are the songs worked into it? Are they played before the essays they're about, or what? I tend to think it's only here because the word "haunts" is in the title.
When I first heard that this EP had seven tracks, I was hoping for more than about twelve minutes of music. There's a definite theme running through the CD, and I can respect that. It just seems like TMBG has done other songs that would have worked better here than "The Other Side Of The World" or "Canada Haunts Me." (While I don't like "Skullivan" much, I can't argue that it fits the theme.) For instance, I think the EP would have been an excellent place for "Hell Hotel," the only song on the band's 1985 demo tape that has yet to see a proper release. Some of the songs from the Battle of the Bands project, especially "Chaos By Design" and "Headless" might have also worked. Speaking of which, I wonder if TMBG is totally done with the Battle of the Bands thing. I was really hoping for an album, or at least an EP, based on that project.
The Spine Surfs Alone: This is pretty cool. Not one of the band's best songs or anything, but it's a good fast-paced rock song.
Now Is Strange: I like the lyrics to this one. Well, the ones I've been able to work out, anyway. Good overall sound, too. I don't really have that much else to say about it, though.
I'm All You Can Think About: The best song on the EP. It's traditional TMBG in a way, with a sound that's kind of creepy, but with a heavy dose of humor. Lyrically, it sounds like it could be the other point of view on "Spy." Sonically, I like John Linnell's goofy faux-British accent, the piano, and the horns. The "ba ba ba ba" part seems so ridiculously inappropriate, yet it still fits somehow. There's an animated Flash video for this song, which will play if you put the CD into a computer. Speaking of the video, does the pair of glasses that the singer dons at one point remind anyone else of those worn by Professor Farnsworth from Futurama?
Fun Assassin: There's a kind of old-fashioned sound to this one. While not one of my favorites at the moment, I could definitely see it growing on me.
Skullivan: I think the title might be better than the song. Kind of like "Prevenge" and "Bastard Wants To Hit Me" in that respect, I suppose, but both of those songs are considerably better than this one. Very experimental, with a lot of nearly unintelligible babbling/yelling from John Flansburgh. Not that that's necessarily bad, but I don't think this song works so well.
The Other Side Of The World: A short, bell-heavy instrumental. I like it, but it's really not much.
Canada Haunts Me: A song that the band did for the audio book version of Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot. Okay, but not great. Maybe it works better in context. If anyone has the audio book, how are the songs worked into it? Are they played before the essays they're about, or what? I tend to think it's only here because the word "haunts" is in the title.
When I first heard that this EP had seven tracks, I was hoping for more than about twelve minutes of music. There's a definite theme running through the CD, and I can respect that. It just seems like TMBG has done other songs that would have worked better here than "The Other Side Of The World" or "Canada Haunts Me." (While I don't like "Skullivan" much, I can't argue that it fits the theme.) For instance, I think the EP would have been an excellent place for "Hell Hotel," the only song on the band's 1985 demo tape that has yet to see a proper release. Some of the songs from the Battle of the Bands project, especially "Chaos By Design" and "Headless" might have also worked. Speaking of which, I wonder if TMBG is totally done with the Battle of the Bands thing. I was really hoping for an album, or at least an EP, based on that project.
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Date: 2004-07-20 06:30 pm (UTC)And I concur about Battle of the Bands. I liked most of those songs quite a bit.
And Hell Hotel MUST be released EVENTUALLY. Dammit, John and John, that song rules.
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Date: 2004-07-21 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-21 05:33 pm (UTC)I've normally had pretty good luck with getting stuff from TMBG, in-tact-wise. Things used to take FOREVER, though. Like, when I got the first shotglass set, it took over a year, but that was because the factory burned down, and someone from TMBP gave me a call about it, asking whether or not I wanted to keep the order open or not. The one nice thing about them going online is that they actually send things now, though, since even when factories weren't burning down, it'd still take several months to get, say, shirts and whatnot.